PAGES 4. Reasons for selecting the words given in the specimen articles, 29 X. Videre, pp. 99-125. Conspectus of distribution of forms, 99-100 XI. Comment on the verbs given, 126-128 Preface. This little book is intended to define the principles in accordance with which I shall work in preparing a complete Lexicon to the Works of Vergil and to illustrate these principles by a number of suitable articles. There are two ends which I shall constantly keep in view until the work is finished: to make the lexicon as nearly perfect as possible from my own resources, and to issue it in its completed form within five years. As time passes between now and the date of publication, I may on my own initiative modify in many respects the plan which is here adopted. I shall certainly welcome, and give the most careful consideration to, all criticisms and suggestions from scholars. Finally, it gives me great pleasure to express here my deep feeling of gratitude to Professor Edward P. Morris, L.H.D., and to Professor Hanns Oertel, Ph.D., for their assistance in perfecting this plan and for their encouragement in regard to the work which yet remains to be done. WILLIAMS COLLEGE, Williamstown, Mass., M. N. W. The Plan and Scope of a I. A Lexicon to the Works of Vergil belongs to a class of monographs which is of comparatively recent origin. It was on the 30th of April, 1864, that Ritschl (Wölfflin's Archiv, V., p. 584) wrote to Halm: "Wäre ich ein reicher Mann, ich würde Speziallexica drucken lassen." Soon after this we see that the idea had taken hold on the minds of several scholars. The reason why Ritschl and others about this time began to feel the need of special lexicons is not hard to see. On the one hand, it was then that the modern critical editions of the Latin writers were in progress. A first-rate lexicon to an author gives an editor or critic perfect control over the author's use of words and constructions. Therefore, even if a special lexicon is not an absolute necessity, it is certainly a great help in making an edition, critical or exegetical. Again, the desire for special lexicons was felt by those scholars who were interested in historical syntax, lexicography and semantics. In these lines of work, too, no perfect book can be written until all the Latin writers are provided with lexicons. The first edition of Draeger's great work on historical syntax |